Day: August 31, 2018

A Tournament Contest from Tournament Book, about 1560–70, unknown illuminator, made in Germany. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig XV 14, fols. 27v–28 Manuscripts, stained glass, garments, tapestries, and other precious objects provide a window into the spectacles and social rules that governed life in European courts. By Dr. Larisa Grollemond / 08.27.2018 Assistant[…]

It revolutionized the art of portrait-making. By Afzal Ibrahim / 07.22.2018 Introduction A question often asked – Why Is Mona Lisa Painting Famous? At first glance, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa appears to be just another portrait of a woman. The work, painted sometime between 1503 and 1519, features a brown-eyed woman with dark hair,[…]

Marianne is the embodiment of the French Republic. Marianne represents the permanent values that found her citizens’ attachment to the Republic: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. Employed alternately by opponents of the republican system and by its defenders, the name Marianne (Marie-Anne), popular with the working classes, is the symbol of a Republic constructed by the gradual[…]

The Massacre of the Triumvirate, by Antoine Caron, 1566 / Louvre Museum, Wikimedia Commons Roman eyes were fixed on Hispania in 75 BCE. By Tristan Hughes / 07.24.2017 Ancient Historian 75 BC and Roman eyes are fixed on Hispania. For the past five years one man has lead a bloody resistance in defiance of the[…]

The Entrance of Cornelius Sulla into Rome, where he was appointed as “Dictator” in the First Century BCE / Wikimedia Commons The truth is complex. By Marc Hyden / 07.27.2015 Historian Introduction For centuries, Lucius Cornelius Sulla has been reviled as a maniacal tyrant who defiled the Roman constitution and instituted bloody purges, but some[…]

The Tarpeian Rock / Photo by Lalupa, Wikimedia Commons The world quickened and mutated, and the Republic with it. By Tom Holland Historian In the beginning, before the Republic, Rome was ruled by kings. About one of these, a haughty tyrant by the name of Tarquin, an eerie tale was told. Once, in his palace,[…]